|Reſlections| What do
|Reſlections| What do American rock singer and poet Patti Smith, contemporary artists Giulio Paolini and Allison Katz and a robot dog called Spot have in common? T he answer may surprise you: they are all connected with Pompeii. In July 2022, Patti Smith played a live set in the Roman theatre of Italy’s most celebrated archaeological site, while Paolini and Katz, along with dozens of other artists, have become involved in an ongoing project, launched in 2020, that aims to bridge the bimillennial gap between Pompeii’s first and twenty-first centuries. And that robotic canine? Developed by US-based company Boston Dynamics, it’s being used to explore parts of the sprawling 66ha site that humans can’t safely reach. Spot, Patti Smith and contemporary art are just a few of the modernity flares currently being fired out by an ancient city that is increasingly engaged with not only the present but also the future. Pompeii is one of the top bucket-list tourist sites in Italy, up there with the Sistine Chapel. It’s not just the chance to stroll along the streets and enter the houses and shops of a well-preserved ancient Roman town that draws visitors. Ever since the mid- 18th-century, when archaeologists began to excavate the area, the world has been transfixed by the dramatic final chapter of the Pompeii story: the AD79 eruption of Vesuvius that killed most of the inhabitants of what was then a thriving port city, and covered its buildings, frescoes, mosaics and even freshly baked loaves of bread in a layer of volcanic debris, preserving them for posterity. Above: remnant columns of the Basilica, in the city’s Forum; previous page, clockwise from top left: the copper statue of Apollo, which presides over one of the city’s oldest places of worship, is a replica – the original resides in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples; the lofty remains of the Forum; German-Italian archaeologist and Archaeological Park director Gabriel Zuchtriegel; a stitched wall inside the House of the Chaste Lovers 34 CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM
But for many years, it wasn’t just what was on view inside the site that was old. Until well into the new millennium, poor conservation, staffing issues, invasive illegal guides and inadequate signage were part of Pompeii’s “old-school” management approach, one that placed little emphasis on visitor satisfaction. The problems culminated in 2010 and 2011, when a series of structural collapses caused by a combination of water infiltration and sheer neglect made headlines around the world. Paradoxically, this nadir marked the beginning of Pompeii’s renaissance. Faced with a wonder of the world that was visibly falling apart and the risk that its Unesco World Heritage status would be rescinded, the European Union released 105 million euros in funds that were spent on conservation and security between 2014 and 2020 as part of The Great Pompeii Project. Meanwhile, under director Massimo Osanna, the Archaeological Park of Pompeii began to make a name for itself not just as a dusty pile of ruins but as a forwardthinking, media-savvy cultural entity. Osanna launched initiatives like Pompeii Commitment, a project that encourages artists of today to dialogue with the ancient site. Osanna also understood perfectly the power of the Pompeii story, framing new discoveries in ways designed to stir the modern imagination. A thermopolium unearthed between 2019 and 2020 was presented to the world’s press A frescoed portrait from the recently excavated House with the Garden most likely depicts its mistress the day after Christmas 2020. It was perfect timing: tales of a Pompeii street-food bar that specialised in poultry flew straight into the homes of people wondering what to do with all that leftover turkey. The visitor experience improved by leaps and bounds, too: floodlit evening visits were launched and previously closed areas of the site reopened, while an antiquarium charting the history of the site was inaugurated in January 2021. Pompeii even landed on social media – capturing attention with, among other things, a drone-filmed visit of the newly excavated “House with the Garden” narrated by Osanna himself. Appointed in April 2021, the Archaeological Park’s new director, German archaeologist Gabriel Zuchtriegel, is continuing Osanna’s legacy but taking it in new directions. One of his priorities, he says, is to guarantee a “sustainable modelz of conservation and maintenance” now that The Great Pompeii Project funds have all been spent. Another is to work to broaden the site’s outreach. In May 2022, 80 students from two local secondary schools put on a production of Aristophanes’ satirical comedy The Birds (updated to reflect their own experience as teenagers in what is today a tough but also eternally creative part of CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM 35
